What if?
by Mister Evil
Summary: What if Tom Riddle actually had a happy childhood before Dumbledore found him? What if Tom Riddle choose to start his own company instead of starting wars? What if he'd gotten married to a witch named Isabella? What if he just wanted to give Orphans the same happiness he'd had? This is what would have happened if Tom Riddle had never started down his path as Voldemort. (AU! TOM/OC)


_Team: Ballycastle Bats_

 _Position: Keeper_

 _Prompt: The Orphanage (2007)_

 _Word Count: 1,665_

 _A/N:_ **OBVIOUSLY AU!** As mentioned in the description this is an **AU** , in which Tom Riddle is a wizard but thanks to the love of Mrs Cole in the orphanage he never went on the 'murder all Muggles/Muggle-born' rampage. As an **AU** that was inspired by The Orphanage which was a Spanish horror movie (in which a woman buys her old orphanage to take care of sick kids), this will not be the same nutty Voldemort you're thinking of. Hes married, learned his lesson with some community service, and happy.

 _ **DO NOT GO INTO THIS EXPECTING A CANON-COMPLIANT TOM RIDDLE.**_

* * *

"You're sure this is it?" I waved at the dingy brick building with a grimace as Tom's face seemed to glow at the sight of his old orphanage. It didn't look like the same place that he claimed he spent the best years of his life.

"Bells, come on. I'd know it anywhere! This is it." He had given me a toothy smile that resulted in several wrinkles around his eyes before he started off towards the front doors.

I timidly followed behind him feeling like I didn't belong here whatsoever and I didn't understand how such a place could hold so many happy memories for my husband. He'd had a rough time as a child and a teenager, but according him Wool's Orphanage had always been his home. A bout of Ministry enforced community service for some destruction of personal property during his drunken escapade on a broom had led him to meeting me.

I was merely a waitress in a cafe next to a church that held a monthly kitchen for homeless people to come in and grab a bite to eat in a warm place. My cafe donated food and beverages while the church often recommended our cafe after services. Who'd have thought that the only two non-Muggles in the area would take a liking to each other?

"Um, Tom..." I almost had run into my husband's back before I realised he'd stopped at the doorway of a dimly lit room that contained several chairs and a desk.

"Can I help you?" A younger woman sat behind a large wooden desk with a pair of thick glasses that forced her eyes to be the main attraction on her face. She eyed us for a second before focusing on Tom more so than me when he confidently strode up to her desk.

"Is Mrs Cole here still?" His voice didn't echo as much as I'd expected it too in the bare room but, I figured that was thanks to the sheer amount of wallpaper peeling off the walls. I seriously hoped that this place had been given some kind of check for asbestos within the last decade.

"I'm sorry, there isn't anyone here with that name." The young woman looked mildly confused as Tom's face fell a bit. I supposed he couldn't exactly get back in contact with the kids or the woman that had raised him when he was an orphan. Wizardkind didn't age on the outside quite like Muggles, we sort of lived to be hundreds of years older than them. I'd dealt with the disappointment and difficulty of that after my grandma lived to be much older than my late Muggle grandpa.

"I see. Well, who owns this place now then?" He seemed to have gotten back on track with little effort on my part which was nice as I had a tendency to be the more level-headed one between us.

"That would be Mr Wool, um. May I know whose asking and why, sir?" She appeared to still be confused and seemed to slowly be more suspicious of us, which was fair. I doubt many people would just barge into an orphanage asking who ran it.

"That would be Tom and Isabella Riddle and we're here to buy this place." Tom's grin reappeared in a rather morbid fashion and how pale the women turned made me think he might have been terrifying her just a little. This wasn't the first time his grin had done such a thing, my own mum was terrified when he declared he wanted to marry me within five minutes of walking through my parent's front door with that toothy grin.

"Right." The receptionist swallowed a bit before moving towards the phone on the other side of her desk and picking it up. I tugged on Tom's arm and brought him with me to the two sturdiest looking chairs to give the poor girl some space.

"Are you sure?" I frowned again as I asked the same question I'd been asking him since the past month. Tom's service seemed to have left him with a need to help people, particularly children. So after his sentence had been up, he continued to volunteer around London with various groups while continuing his position at a Muggle law firm as well. Eventually, he decided he needed to drop the company and start 'really contributing' in his own words.

"I know this is scary." He gave me a comforting squeeze on my thigh that didn't do all that much to comfort me. It'd been a month since Tom had phoned the orphanage and considered taking over the place.

"We don't even know how to do this, Tom. I get you loved it here, but..." I struggled to deal with this, and we both knew that this wasn't really the time or the place to bring it up so I trailed off. I had all of zero knowledge on how to run an orphanage. How do we even get money? Do people pay us to take kids? Do we pay them to give us the kids? Does the government pay us? I grew up in a happy, two parent, home in Ireland, our village didn't have orphans or homeless people or anything. It was sheltered, I was sheltered, and an orphanage was the opposite of sheltered.

"Mr Riddle, um. Mr Wool is on his way here to discuss the paperwork." We both looked up at the sound of the receptionist's voice as she sat back down, done with her phone call.

We waited in silence with only the sound of the phone occasionally ringing; it was eerie feeling. I thought that an Orphanage would have more...sounds. Little feet running up and down stairs, high-pitched laughter, or at the very least some mice in the walls. I occasionally glanced around the room, eyeing the strips of paper that had fallen and the faded yellow stripes on the bits of wallpaper that had remained on the walls, with a sense of anxiety in my heart.

"Mr Riddle?" A middle aged man appeared after about 30 minutes of silence with a breathless greeting and an aged leather briefcase in his hands. I had to assume this was Mr Wool.

It took us about 30 more minutes to get all the necessary documents and scribbles together before Mr Wool seemed to have it dawn on him that this situation was odd. At first he just glanced between the two of us as Tom read through the documents with a careful eye for repairs and possible issues, but then he actually decided to just ask.

"Why is a young couple trying to buy this old place?" He seemed hesitant to ask, possibly due to the fact that he had a chance at getting rid of the orphanage that his great-grandfather had built. I'd only glanced over some of the finances but it looked like the place had a lot of debt built up over the years. Terrific.

"I was born here, and with the help of Mrs Cole, it made me into the man I am today." Tom's answer appeared to be good enough for Tom but, for everyone else it was lacking. It was hard to explain something like that to your own husband so I'd left it alone but luckily, Mr Wool wasn't me.

"So? Why buy it? This isn't a summer home in France, this is an orphanage." Mr Wool surmised with a raised brow as he watched Tom sign off on another page.

"I want to be able to give back, contribute a little to society and give kids like me a home." Tom's words were yet again lacking in worldly knowledge but they satisfied Mr Wool's curiosity.

"I see. Admirable. But I should warn you two, this place is haunted y'know." I had stared at the man for a good second before I realised that he was actually serious.

"Really now?" I raised a brow, wondering if the asbestos had finally gotten to his brain. Mr Wool nodded at his own warning to us while Tom continued to read through pages and I stared at him. I didn't feel like Ghosts were especially a problem...and I hadn't seen anything at all in the time we'd been here.

"Mhm. They say that a woman came here one night and died while giving birth, the baby lived on but she still wanders the place searching for her child." Mr Wool leaned in a little as he spun his little tale and I continued to question the sanity of this Muggle and how they'd been allowed to raise actual children. I knew they were a bit superstitious from stories of Tom's magic hi-jinks as a lad, but I didn't realise it was like this. Ghost stories of women dying and searching for their kids was depressing, I hope they didn't tell them to the children.

"Wow." My lips formed a straight line as Tom signed off on the last page before stacking them all back together. It seemed he was just ignoring Mr Wool entirely and that I was the only one entertaining his wild tales at the moment.

"Alright, Mr Wool. If thats all there is for today, my bank will be in touch." Tom handed the pages back with a small smile before getting ready to leave. I supposed it was time we went but I honestly couldn't stop the feeling that this place would result in us going bankrupt. I'd made my peace with that though, this was Tom's dream and until I had my own, I'd go along on his adventure.


End file.
